German parliament recognizes Armenian genocide. Wrath of Ankara
The Bundestag vote allows that German authorities of that time knew of the genocidal plans and did nothing to stop it. Historians tell us that the solution of the elimination of Armenians, Greeks and other minorities responded to the geopolitical demands of Western powers. For Angela Merkel, who was absent from the vote on the Armenian Genocide the "single fact" should not affect alliance between Ankara and Berlin.
Istanbul (AsiaNews) - The German parliament has unanimously recognized the Armenian genocide 100 years ago under the Ottoman Empire, the same empire that the current Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan dreams of reviving.
Chancellor Angela Merkel (engaged in a scientific conference); her deputy, the Social Democrat Sigmar Gabriel (who was also engaged in a congress of German manufacturers) and Foreign Minister Frank Walter Steinmeir, on a mission to Argentina were absent from yesterday’s vote.
Several MPs and German authorities criticized their absence.
Erdogan, who was traveling to Kenya, immediately reacted by recalling the Turkish ambassador to Berlin. It echoes Ankara's decision, when Pope Francis had condemned the Armenian genocide last year. Erdogan said that this decision is serious and will have repercussions in the bilateral relations between the two countries.
In recent times within the European Union Berlin had promoted and supported significant political economic support to Ankara on the issue of emigration, an acceleration of its EU integration process, along with giving the green light to Ankara's request for the liberalization of visas for Turkish citizens in Europe.
Binali Yildirim - the new Turkish prime minister who has replaced the recently exonerated Davutoglu, the theoretician behind Erdogan’s Turkish neo-Ottoman policy - spoke of serious historical mistake by the Bundenstag. The prime minister believes the German parliament was pressured into making the decision because of the racist pressures of the Armenian lobby, adding that the Turkish people are a proud people and that there is no fact of the past that "can force us to bow our heads."
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu intervened saying that "they cannot cover the faults of their own past [to Germany], throwing mud on the history of other countries, with the irresponsible decisions made by the parliament".
The Turkish component of German society is beginning to have a very specific political weight, counting about 4 million, largely naturalized German.
In the motion approved by the German parliament, express mention is made of a very important fact: the behavior of the then German Reich, which did nothing to stop the Armenian genocide, although it had full knowledge of the will of the then Turkish leaders .
The Bundestag's position confirms the thesis, now discharged even by historical studies, that the Reich at that time with its various military advisers sent to Asia Minor (now Turkey), in support of the then Turkish ally, considered the Armenian element an obstacle to its geopolitical plans in the Middle East, while the Ottoman empire was in the process of disintegration. For this reason it preferred the quick solution of extermination, created by the Turkish rulers and perpetrated by the Kurds, on the back of a vague promise of a future autonomy.
In the context of the geopolitical interests of the powerful of the time, the same later happened to the Greeks on the Black Sea and other Christian minorities.
German Prime Minister Angela Merkel later commented on the vote: "The breadth of strategic ties between the two countries are far stronger than a single fact."
Such a "single fact" would in this case be the Armenian genocide, which killed more than 1.5 million people.
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01/06/2016 19:31
11/08/2017 20:05
